Behold my thoughts on the Remnants books as I read them.
So far, I've realized, the greatest difference between this series vs Animorphs and Everworld: It never focuses on one protagonist in a single book. It will jump around chapter by chapter. Which instead of letting you get particularly invested in a character, you instead feel more like you are seeing scenes in a TV show. It gives you more of a sense that everyone you don't get a POV chapter from is probably going to die. And so far as I've read, that seems true?
01 – The Mayflower Project – The Earth presented here feels entirely crafted by Grant, and there's a lot of annoying lingo, and weird societal quirks like kids picking names that essentially amount to internet slang. Jobs's name feels especially out of touch in the present day, but Mo'Steel, D-Caf, 2Face are all equally stupid. Most of the characters are hard to like. Amusingly, This book which mostly exists to set up the story and characters doesn't even set up all the characters! As for the horror, this is the mildest of books, and relies on focusing heavily on watching the Earth cling desperately to a plan that's doomed to fail, and feels like slouching towards abyss. That said, it does deliver on those moments very well. But get used to jumping from perspective to perspective, because that's the name of the game, bucko.
02 – Destination Unknown – Finally some good shit. But, it feels a little… like it really doesn't accomplish much. Still, the body horror finally gets cooking here, with really vivid descriptions. Anyone who gets to this book will remember the baby. The favourite character in the early books is finally introduced! Violet Blake. It says something that a girl who literally models herself after Jane Austen novels like a huge book nerd is the most likeable character – considering the others treat her with disdain for her apparent rejection of modernity. I appreciate the world they set up here, too – it feels especially relevant today with AI stuff mangling it all, and everything only looking right at a distance. Several mysteries are set up. Who built this world for them? Who stole the rest of the sleeping passengers? Why are there martial aliens roaming around repeatedly trying to kill them? What are the parasitic bugs, and how worried do they need to be about them? And last but not least – what is Billy Weir truly capable of? Sadly, all of it is ruined by needing to focus on in-group politcal wheeling and dealing, as if it's at all imporant to create a hierarchical society with like 12 people. Literally nothing is stopping a single one of these people from just flipping the bird and doing their own thing.
03 – Them – Oh yeah, here we go. It's all starting to come together. A lot of things happen, finally, and we sorta know what's going on! And the body horror is *chef's kiss*. Weird and unsettling not-people, meat pies, aliens, the truly insane scale of the ship that needs to siphon off stars to fuel itself, the absurdity of trying to treat a survival expedition like a board meeting, Tamara and the fucking *baby*, and to top it all off – It's the big man, you all know him, you love him, it's the OG – Heironymus Bosch! The sneering, madness throng of *BOSCH* lurking in the depths of Babel! Hook it to my veins. The riders feel like almost an afterthought, like something just there to create early tension, compared to it (and really, probably don't matter in the long run). Plus we get the Blue Meanie, and even with zero personality he is still my 2nd favourite character because holy shit he is actually useful. You would think they would be better at holding on to a couple of weapons, geez. Also, no lie, I laugh every fucking time they drop Billy Weir into some unmentionabal filth or they basically give him a concussion. The final confrontation is suitably dire, and how DARE THEY TAKE MY BOY FROM ME. And would you look at that, the minor antagonists are wrapped up in a bow.
04 – Nowhere Land – Oops my bad, we're still pretending the riders are something we need to care about. They feel like just a force making the people need to move locations – which, to be fair, is kinda how most of Everworld worked – with the protagonists fleeing from spot to spot. Which book series forced the protagonists to forward the plot better? I honestly can't say yet. But in reality there is zero reason for the riders to still need to hunt the humans – they got their landscape back. Anyway, nobody was eaten by the baby yet, because of good timing. We finally get the scenes that billy wier hinted at way back in BOOK ONE – Blimp creatures, copper seas, and the boat! Kinda expected these to all be spread out a bit and not show up in one book but here we are. After the previous book, this one feels really light on the horror. How dare they. But finally… FINALLY. Billy stops being a fucking log. God they really did not need to keep this kid as a log for 2.5 books, but at least it's over now. Violet continues to be my favourite character, and 2Face would probably be more popular if she could express herself a little better. Mo, of course, is like a beautiful angel amongst this crowd use useless assholes. Speaking of useless assholes, there sure are a lot of them. They barely mentioned returning to their in-group-out-group sceheming and I'm already tired of it. Jobs is… fine. He's one of those annoying protagonists that functions as the audience insert due to being a little thoughtful, and people treat him like he's got a good head on his shoulders, but does he? Does he really? The answer, dear children, is no. Anyway, where was I. Ah yes. Blimp creatures, copper seas, and the boat! We get a grand total of like five minutes of not being hunted to death and even some coffee, and then it's back to the action. And then the book ends with a lot of action and *gasp* even more deaths! We knew we'd get there eventually but, damn, we are already really running low on people and there's a LOT of books left!!
Prediction time! Since they brought up the Missing Eight again, and we've been talking about how MOTHER likes to remix things, my guess is the computer stole those 8 passengers and is basically making a brand new population of real humans to interact with based on their genetic material and brain scans. We shall see how good I did!
Tune in months from now as I get through the next set of books, and my odd musings to accompany them! So far, Book 3 is the best.
by Hexatona